Welcome to the extra credit Discipline of Spiritual Warfare and thanks for taking the time to dig deeper. If you have not done so, please read about the Discipline of Spiritual Warfare on the website: http://www.40daysofdiscipline.com/
Over the next 6 Days, Karen Christie will share thoughts from a Kay Arthur study called “Lord is it warfare? Teach me to stand”, that a Women’s Bible Study recently concluded. Today the focus will be on The Battle:
Here are some key points:
- The battle affects every area of your existence whether you know about the battle or not.
- You are a candidate once you’ve trusted Christ as your Savior.
- It’s first and foremost all spiritual (Ephesians 6v12) tell us…. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,[c] against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
- Spiritual Warfare is that conflict in the invisible angelic realm that is being waged in the visible physical realm (Ephesians 6v12).
- Everything physical is influenced or caused or provoked by something spiritual.
Daniel 4v26 says..And inasmuch as they gave the command to leave the stump and roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be assured to you, after you come to know that Heaven rules. Unless we can address the spiritual, we can’t fix the physical effects.
Here are a few areas that spiritual warfare affects:
- Anger.. Ephesians 4v26 says..Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, 27 nor give place to the devil. There’s a correlation between the effect of uncontrolled anger and giving opportunity to the devil to take over a compartment of our lives.
- Family.. 1Corinthians 7v5 says..Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. If husband and wife don’t have a good physical relationship the devil will use this opportunity to come in and bring about moral deterioration in the family with effects that spread through.
- Church..1Timothy 4v1 says..Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. The enemy likes to mix the truth with lies, so we’re told in 1 John 4v1…Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
We’re in a war and there’s nowhere to run. It’s your ability to control and influence the spiritual realm that will determine victory or defeat in the physical realm. Satan’s job is to get you to not see it as serious. If he can divert you from the spiritual realm he can divert you from the only place where the solution lies.
Today look at areas of your life that you’re facing spiritual warfare. Name them to the Lord. In Jude, when Michael the Arch Angel came up against Satan he knew he wasn’t a match for him, and he prayed Satan I rebuke you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So when you fight Satan this week instead of trying to find out how strong you are, tell the Lord how weak you are. We don’t have the ability to fight Satan but our Father does.